Dungeon Chapter 33 (Patreon)

I caught the spinning ax mid-air as my body reformed with the darkened skin and blood red eyes of a demon.

Both of my opponents were wide eyed at my sudden transformation.

And I didn’t give them any time to regroup.

Carrying the momentum of the spinning ax through to a chop, I brought it right through the assassin’s leg as she stabbed me in the side with her dagger.

My CID chirped with a new status message, but I didn’t have time to look.

The assassin cried out, and she stumbled to the side a few hops before falling over, not prepared to keep fighting after losing a leg.

“Oh, you fucker. It doesn’t matter how big you get.” Gretch tried to headbutt me, but I brought my own skull down to meet hers.

The end result had us both seeing stars.

I recovered first and raked my sharp claws across her face.

She screamed and clutched at where I tore her flesh before she reached for her CID. She managed to draw out a health potion as she stumbled back.

The ax still in my hand, I spun for the assassin who was crawling away.

“Die.” It was the only word I’d spoken since the fight began. It was also all I could think about at present. They needed to die to protect my party.

In that moment, there was nothing but cold rage in me. They wanted to destroy my party, and I was not going to let them harm Des, Charlotte and Fayeth.

Following them and hearing their plans as they found ambushing spots was all I needed. Their intentions were clear, and I wasn’t going to let them have the first shot.

I was on the assassin in a flash, my ax burying itself into her back and severing her spine. Even if she had the stamina to survive the hit, she was going to get a nasty debuff that would keep her from going anywhere. That and if Gretch tried to call that Ax back, I was pretty sure she’d kill her partner.

Rapid steps made me spin back around to take on the tank.

Gretch was racing at me, a spare weapon in her hand and her mouth set in silent fury as she swung with all her strength.

I was likely stronger than her, but there was no reason to risk the injury of trying to catch her strike.

“Earth Stomp.” My ability sent a ripple of earth that tripped her up. I stepped into her swing at the same instant.

But she was a tank for a reason. Gretch dropped her weapon and tried to slug it out with me. Unfortunately for her, my stamina was ridiculous for a level two, and even more so with my current metamorphosis.

In a fist fight, it helped that I had razor sharp claws.

The grapple seemed to take forever, but by the time that Gretch went down clutching her torn open throat, I let go of metamorphosis and stood there panting, trying to catch my breath.

My mana was low, but it wasn’t completely drained.

My other abilities were still fair game, but metamorphosis wasn’t going to be an option until I replenished.

“Gotta clean this up.” I said to myself as I looked down at the three bodies.

The lessons we’d had about the dungeon stuck in my mind, but it was for a very different reason than they were intended. “I hope you are hungry Mr. Dungeon.” Grabbing Gretch’s and the Assassin’s CID along with anything valuable, I ensured they were both dead and started dragging the large girl into the bog first.

My side ached, and I was reminded of my stab wound. I lifted my yoria to see a big purple rash spreading from the wound.

I checked my CID, and sure enough, ‘Poisoned’ was flashing on my screen.

Grabbing a health potion from my CID, I knocked it back and wrinkled my nose at the taste. It didn’t taste good, but it was effective. I perked right up. The cut in my side healed closed, but the purple rash stayed. Clearly I was going to need some additional help to deal with the poison.

I was hoping the nurse from before would be willing to help. She hadn’t asked many questions before.

Moving to the next body, I dragged the assassin towards the bog. It was about this time and the pain from the poison that cleared my head enough to realize I’d been too rash.

There were other options than killing them myself, but after the threats to Fayeth and the way they spoke, I just wanted to end them myself. I knew I could do it, this was what I was trained to do by Grandpa.

Maybe that’s why I had to do it myself and no go back running to the UG President and ask for help.

The assassin’s body didn’t sink immediately and I rolled a few stones over her chest to sink her in the murky waters. This could have been me if I had been a little less careful.

But it wasn’t and a small smile crept up on my lips as I realized I had protected my party from something that could have been much worse.

I walked over towards Gris, but a boggart had already gotten to her. It was lumbering over the corpse, and I was happy to let it finish her off.

I crouched into the bushes and opened up the stolen CIDs.

Each of them had their own internal storage, and I browsed through the assassin’s CID. I was specifically looking for an antidote, but nothing was there.

“What sort of insane person runs around with poison spells and poisoned daggers but no antidote?” I muttered, frowning as I realized she was likely a class that specialized in poisons and might have even had an ability to deal with it.

Poisons were stupid, in my opinion. Better to ram a dagger through an opponent and make sure they were dead than leave it up to a fickle poison.

Still, I grunted as my breaths got a little more labored. I had no idea what the poison was doing to my body, but it definitely wasn’t comfortable.

I finished rummaging through the CIDs, taking their loot and using the device to transfer over their coins. Their team was doing better than they could have purely through dungeon diving. My guess was somebody had paid them to come after us.

It fit with the stealth skills they’d mentioned they’d gotten, and the larger organization they seemed to have joined.

A headache was forming in the front of my mind as I finished picking what I wanted from their CIDs and got rid of the last body with the help of the boggart.

“Just over here.” A voice spooked me, and I darted into a bush. I had to bite down on my tongue as I tried to suppress a hiss of pain from my side.

Reaching into my CID, I used two more health potions, bringing me to three left.

I popped one, causing the pain from the poison to fade for the moment.

“They should be here?” There was confusion in the woman’s voice as she looked around the bog, towards where I’d thrown the three CIDs into.

I cursed as I realized these two women were the others on the team.

I licked my lips and stared through the bog at them.

Neither of them looked familiar to me. The more concerning one was the caster. She was decked out in far too much gear for a low level adventurer.

I sucked in a deep breath. She wasn’t a first year at Haylon, and I was without my metamorphosis.

She was likely well on her way to becoming a professional adventurer.

She was staring at the bog while the other continued to stare at her CID, as if to make sense of it. “They are dead.” The upperclassman frowned at the bog. “That’s where their CID’s were likely dumped.”

“Maybe a monster got them?” The other girl held tightly to a staff with a cross at the top as she looked around anxiously. 

“They wouldn’t die to a boggart if all of them laid down and took a nap. Someone killed them.” The caster looked around the marsh with a critical eye.

I kept myself low and looked down at my feet, breathing slowly while I focused on listening.

Humans were good at feeling others looking at them.

I just had to use that to my advantage, let her think I was long gone.

“Tornado.” The upperclassman said calmly, and another section of bushes were ripped apart by her spell.

I stayed still. Running wasn’t going to help my situation.

With the poison, it was better if I just avoided this fight even if I had the advantage of something like absorb.

She was likely in the upper teens, or maybe even level twenty. I didn’t have enough tricks in my bag to kill her, especially when she was already on guard.

I knew when to pick my battles. For the moment, I laid low and tried to memorize her face.

“No one is here.” The caster replied confidently. “Whoever did this is long gone.” She let out a sigh. “Let’s get back to school and see if we can’t find some more girls to help us. Your father will provide more skills for them?”

“Yes. Father is invested in preventing the alliance. He’ll give you what you need to deal with the elf girl.” The priest replied quickly.

I recognized the first year. I was pretty sure she was in Class B. But now I was far more interested in who her father was and what made him against the alliance.

The upperclassman grunted and nodded for them to leave.

They headed back out of the dungeon, and I waited a little extra long before letting out a breath.

I looked back at my CID.

I had gotten quite a bit of loot from the three, and killing them had generated ten times the experience of killing a champion fribbit. I considered that. I hadn’t thought that the dungeon would incentivize us killing each other. No wonder Crimson had made such extreme threats.

Between the three of them, I had gotten eight magic items and over sixty experience. That was enough to put me over the line for level three.

Knowing I needed to get out of the dungeon soon, I kept myself creeping around the shadows, moving in a different direction than the two had moved as I wove my way back around to exit the dungeon.

I had to take the rest of the health potions along the way to keep myself mobile, and even then, I was stumbling by the time I made it to the exit.

It was late, so there weren’t many milling around. And nobody seemed surprised that I was injured with torn clothes and blood on me. Adventurers wandered out wounded all the time, and I knew how to not draw unneeded attention.

I hurried through the UG building and out onto campus.

The cool crisp air felt great on my face, and I pulled off the hood of my yorai as I breathed deeply.

I looked around, but the others wouldn’t have waited that long for me. I was on my own.

I started towards the nurses station, but my side suddenly tensed up on me, agony shooting through my body. I stumbled a few steps before I caught myself.

My body was starting to give out on me.

The nurses station suddenly seemed too far away. I turned towards the nearby visitors center, knowing that there would be someone there that could help me.

I was betting on one of the guards having an antidote on hand at the very least.

I managed to stumble my way there, drawing close enough that the guards could spot me.

“Ah. Ken?” Rebbecca from the other day was at the front again. “Shit. Crimson is waiting for you. You look like crap.”

She hurried forward, grabbing my shoulder and helping me into the building.

I held my tongue, not wanting to let it spread that I’d been poisoned. If everybody knew I’d been poisoned around the same time three girls, one a poison focused class, went missing, it would cause more of a headache than I needed. And the headmistress might even have enough ammunition to expel me.

Rebbecca knew I was weak, but she didn’t know why. I did my best to hold myself up as we moved deeper into the building.

Crimson was angrily cooking in the kitchen.

I could tell she was frustrated because there were three piles of food. It was enough to feed an adventurer party for a deep dive.

The rest of my party was sitting around the table looking worried.

As soon as I entered, they turned, and I had an array of angry faces staring me down.

Crimson looked about ready to chew me out before she got a good look at me. That was all it took before she barked at the rest. “Out. All of you.”

Rebbecca jumped. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough, dumping me on a stool as she nearly ran out of the kitchen.

The other girls looked like they were going to argue, but it only took one look from Crimson before they were out of their chairs. Fayeth protested a little, but she took the hint.

Crimson snapped, and a dome covered the two of us. “How many?” She asked.

I swallowed, thinking back to the first day at the academy. We weren’t supposed to kill each other in the dungeon. “They were stalking us today, so I stalked them in return. They were planning to ambush us, kill Fayeth.” I clutched at my side. Breathing hurt.

Crimson was on me in a second, lifting me up by my chin and then tearing off half my yorai. She quickly revealed the spreading purple rash. She leaned down, sniffing it, before she pulled something out of her CID.

“Drink.” She shoved the small flask up to my mouth. “Chug it all.”

Her potion was thick like syrup. The color was a bright purple that only came with sugary grape flavor, but it tasted like ass. I didn’t understand why potions had to look so delicious but taste so awful.

I followed her instructions, chugging the contents. It wasn’t long before I felt a cooling relief on my side.

“How many?” Crimson asked again.

“Three that I took down. Two more I didn’t engage. I wasn’t strong enough to take them on. One of them was an upperclassman.” I told her.

She put me back down on the ground and brushed off my collar. It was a somewhat pointless gesture given the rest of my yorai was in tatters, but it seemed to make her feel better as she thought.

“I’ll fix your yorai. Give it to me tomorrow.” She seemed to read my mind. “Tonight you’ll need to comfort your little harem.” Crimson looked me in the eyes. “Good job. Three on your own isn’t easy.”

I raised my eyebrow. “I half expected to become a mess on the floor.”

She clicked her tongue. “I like the kitchen too much to make a mess in here.” She fought to keep a small smile from forming.

“Thanks.” I pulled the rest of my torn Yorai robe off and kept my pants on. I was too tired to care. “Here. It was a gift from my grandfather. I’d like it fixed if you can.”

She took it and folded it neatly before setting it on the counter. “Tell no one what happened in the dungeon. Don’t walk around wearing their items.”

She paused for a moment. “Actually, if you have their items, give them to me.”

I frowned, but I trusted her. Holding up my CID, I selected the items and transferred them to Crimson. In return, she transferred funds into my CID. I stared at it, surprised.

“I’ll get rid of them. I can sell them somewhere. And if the people behind this are watching to see who is responsible, they’ll see my name next to it.” She gave me a dangerous smile. “Fuckers think they can get Haylon students to murder each other.”

“You’re pissed.” I observed.

“Damn right I am. But I’m not going to do anything directly. We’ll identify the two and put them on watch. You will be the one to eventually kill any of the students involved.” Crimson patted my cheek. “I’m glad you came back safely.” She paused for a moment before grabbing my arms and pulling me into a sort of hug. I was squished against her chest, but she was still a little rigid.

I was feeling particularly odd at the terrifying adventurer comforting me, but I didn’t fight her on it. Clearly she’d been concerned for me.

After a moment, she released me. “Take the food. I made it for you. Now, go comfort your harem.”

“Aren’t we going to talk about this more?” I frowned.

“Nope. I’ll find some pictures of the other students so you can pick them out. And you are going to grow stronger so you can kill them yourself.” She smiled and pushed me towards the stacks of mashed… everything and pan fried food.

I dropped them into my CID. “Thank you, Crimson. For everything. And for having faith in me.” If she hadn’t believed in me, I knew the entire situation would have played out very differently. “What about the UG? Won’t they be able to realize it was me?”

“They don’t interfere or even help with investigations. But they’ll know, somewhere in there they’ll make a file on you and keep it under lock and key. Now if you kill someone from the UG…” She trailed off with a grin that told me everything I needed to know.

They only protected their own.

She didn’t keep me talking and just gently shooed me upstairs. I paused, wondering if she was really okay.

She smiled at me. “If you don’t hurry, we’ll have to talk about a certain magazine I found. Some very interesting poses I’d like to discuss in more length. Now that I know that’s what you enjoy, I’ll just have to get you more of them.” There was a sadistic gleam in her eyes, and I didn’t need any more encouragement. I rushed straight up the stairs.

But when I got to the door to my room, I paused.

I was about to have a second hard conversation.

I opened it, and all four of them were sitting in my room.

Harley was spinning around on my desk chair, bored out of her mind while the other three were posted up in various positions around the room.

Des sat on the bed with her hands folded in her lap, just waiting. Charlotte was petting a bald spot on Bun-bun, who looked very put out to have lost fur. And Fayeth looked like she was refolding all of my clothes.

“There’s the man of the hour.” Harley stopped spinning. “You’re in trouble mister.”